An American writer and illustrator of children's books, born on July 28, 1932, in Dayton, Ohio, United States. She studied at Laurel School in Cleveland and Smith College in Northampton. She married Samuel Fisher Babbitt, with whom she collaborated to create The Forty-ninth Magician, a picture book published in 1996. She is known for Good Girl Winnie Foster (2017), Tuck Everlasting (2002), and The Eyes of the Amaryllis (1982). She passed away on October 31, 2016, in Hamden, Connecticut, USA.